Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The Unfinished Building was not just one building; it also included the ground floor stores that came with it. The developer planned to build a residential area, and the Unfinished Building was the first building of it. It was a perfect example of oversized ambition. The ground floor stores were abandoned after the framework, but now, they were a natural obstacle, making it impossible to see into the distance.
The faint street lamps could not light up much space, and were not very helpful for observation.
Fast cars drove by, including some fully loaded trucks that were traveling overnight. The red taillights made long shadows across the road. The heavy sound of trucks was kind of comforting.
As Famous said, the smell of human and animal waste was everywhere. Even Zhang Zian could smell it without a dog’s sense of smell. People passed by without finding a toilet, so they ended up doing their business in roofless, empty rooms. Cats, dogs, and other animals made the smell even worse.
“Galaxy, beware of your feet. Don’t step on turd,” Zhang Zian reminded it, tilting his head towards it.
“Meow.” Galaxy dodged the crap on the ground with flexibility, peeping around at the strange, new place.
“Zian, are you sure the Holy Cat statue has shown up here?” Old Time Tea’s eyes were as bright as bronze lights in the darkness. It was not happy to see the urine and feces all over the ground.
“I heard that it has.” Zhang Zian’s tone was not very certain. He twisted the flashlight to light up the ground ahead, avoiding pointing it directly into Old Time Tea’s eyes.
“That Holy Cat statue was an evil object for sacrifices. How can it end up with urine and feces?” Old Time Tea shook its head, not finding it credible.
“It’s said that the statue showed up in the building, not outside. Maybe there isn’t so much urine and feces inside the building.” Zhang Zian covered his nose. Thanks to the wind at night, it was not very hot right now. Had it been a hot summer night, he would definitely need a gas mask.
People relieved themselves at the building for convenience, so they would not walk into the building––he conjectured, anyway.
“That’s good.” Old Time Tea turned its body in the air, made a few gentle pushes on the wall, and jumped onto the beam of a ground floor store. It stood overlooking the landscape from high ground.
“What? Weird!” It sensed something unusual.
Zhang Zian looked up and asked, “What’s wrong?”
He was not Old Time Tea; he could not even climb up a tree. He decided not to embarrass himself by climbing up on the beam. .
Old Time Tea’s eyes were like a torch, staring at the dark Unfinished Building. “I saw a flash of light on the fifth floor… but I’m not sure if it’s a reflection.”
“Fifth floor? Let’s go up and see.” Zhang Zian was happy that it was not the thirtieth floor. Otherwise, the climbing would kill him! Besides, the higher the floors, the more dangerous they were. Many locations were unfinished, and the open balcony had no rails. He could not take the risk of falling.
They detoured around a row of ground floor stores and arrived at the Unfinished Building.
The traffic sounds from the street dwindled immediately.
Under the moonlight, holes and ditches were illuminated everywhere on the ground. They were filled with stinky, stagnant water, along with hardened cement, broken red bricks, and sand that was deeper than one’s ankle. There was barely any ground to stand on.
If the Unfinished Building had been finished, it would have looked pretty good. It was not a regular residential building, but a high-end apartment building. The two dark entrances looked like mouths of a giant beast ready to devour people.
Cold, damp wind blew out of the entrances, making one’s skin cold.
“Well, could this building be haunted?” Famous sniffed, suspicious.
Zhang Zian pushed the question back. “Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“I’d love to meet a ghost. I’ve sniffed all sorts of smells, but not the scent of a ghost.” Famous was upset. It came out for some fresh air, but it ended up sniffing all sorts of foul odors. It would have been better off staying in the shop with the perfume scent… In comparison, ghosts might smell better than the urine and feces.
“Unfortunately, I’m 80 percent sure that ghosts don’t exist… so I don’t think we will find them in this building.” They were about to enter. Zhang Zian turned on the flashlight and dimmed the light, so that it only lit up a small area in front of them. He didn’t want to scare away the target.
Cats meowed nearby. Light spots appeared in pairs in the distant grass, then disappeared; they were eyes of stray cats and other small animals––there might even be foxes. Grass rustled everywhere. It would take a lot of courage to come to the building alone.
“Hehe, Zian is right. There’s no ghosts in the world; people made them up. The light I just saw on the fifth floor seems to be firelight. More precisely, it was from a cigarette lighter. If a ghost is carrying a cigarette lighter, I’d like to meet it.” Old Time Tea laughed.
Galaxy looked up and blinked its gray eyes. “Meow. Zian, let’s go inside.”
Zhang Zian wanted to stay outside longer and observe the surroundings. Even if he was not afraid of ghosts, he felt it unpleasant to walk into the Unfinished Building.
After hearing Galaxy, he pointed the flashlight at the stairway. “Okay, let’s go inside. Be careful, everyone. Pay attention to anything unusual.”
He was staying with Famous and Old Time Tea, whose vision, hearing, and sense of smell were a thousand times better than his. If there was anything unusual, they would surely be the first ones to know.
As they entered the stairway, it felt colder and damper. The flashlight lit up countless dancing dust particles.
Dirty water dripped on their heads from time to time. The water supply had been cut off for the building and the pipes were empty, but they had probably accumulated rain water.
After taking a few steps, Zian saw Old Time Tea turn abruptly and look back vigilantly. Famous did the same.
He turned around subconsciously. The flashlight pointed backwards. A gray shadow traveled through the moving flashlight and fell on the ground like a sand bag. It fell almost exactly where they were standing.
A fallen object?
The first idea that came into Zhang Zian’s mind was a falling object. It was an unfinished building, after all, and many balconies on the higher floors were not sealed off. The unpaid workers had left in a hurry, and didn’t take the construction materials or tools with them. Maybe the wind had blown something down…
His hand was sweating while holding the flashlight. Even ghosts were not as frightening as falling objects, which fell down silently at a high speed and landed on people below sooner than they could realize.
If they had stayed outside, it could have been so bad… Maybe Old Time Tea and Famous were capable of dodging it, but he was not. He could have been hit.
However, as his flashlight located the fallen object, they all gasped. The fallen object was not construction waste they had imagined, but a gray, furry animal.
Zhang Zian, Old Time Tea, and Famous looked at each other, then approached it slowly with caution.
In case there were any other falling objects, they didn’t leave the stairway, and stopped as close as they could without leaving their cover.
The flashlight was fixated on the animal; it was not moving at all.
In fact, Zhang Zian was able to recognize it without getting too close. It was a gray cat––or maybe black or blue. The flashlight covered its true hair color.
It was bleeding from every hole of its body and not breathing at all.
Generally speaking, cats were not likely to be killed by falling off of certain heights due to their superb balance, but the height could not be too tall. They could not fly, after all.
Therefore, did this cat fall off by accident? The answer was no.
Zhang Zian saw a few burn marks on its hair; they were pitch-black. There were very small pieces of ash on the ground.
Had it been winter, it could have been burned while warming itself up by the fire, but it was spring now. Even Old Time Tea didn’t use the electric blanket all the time, so Zian doubted that the young cat did.
Being hit by a dead cat was not as fatal as being hit by construction waste, but it could have still handicapped him.
Famous lowered its voice and said, “It has a burnt smell.”
The burning smell was still there, meaning the cat had just been burned. Considering the flash of fire light that Old Time Tea had seen, the conclusion was self-evident.
Apart from the burn marks, it also had a few bruises and scratches. They were not sure if it got hurt during the fall.
Old Time Tea’s whiskers trembled gently. It tried very hard to control the shock and anger inside of it. “Zian, did someone do this on purpose?”
There were two meanings of “on purpose.” First, someone was harming this cat on purpose. Second, someone threw this cat from a great height and tried to hit them on purpose.
The former was certain, as a cat could not harm itself. The latter was questionable. It was not illegal to harm a cat, but harming people on purpose was a much more serious matter.
Famous sniffed everywhere in the stairway and seemed to have found something. “There’s human scent. Quite fresh,” it said.
Suddenly, Old Time Tea and Famous looked toward a certain spot at the ceiling almost at the same time. Their ears erected, focusing on the same direction like a radar.
“Footsteps!” Old Time Tea said. “More than one person. Running!”
“Go!” Zhang Zian made a decision without hesitation. .
He guessed that the flashlight on the cat’s body had alerted the people upstairs––or maybe their voices had traveled far in the empty building, making the people eager to run away like thieves.
As soon as he spoke, Famous dashed out.
The elevator door was a black hole and lacked a real elevator. They rushed into the emergency stairway and dashed up the stairs.
Famous had long legs, and had a great advantage when climbing up the stairs. It could jump up half a flight of stairs with a single leap, and it soon took the lead.
Old Time Tea and Galaxy were flexible, but had shorter legs. They stayed behind.
Zhang Zian had long legs, but his vision was not good as cats and dogs. The shaking flashlight made it hard to see the stairs in front of him.
They didn’t know the place well, and the cluttered construction waste was quite an obstacle. They had to be careful of sharp, steel rebars sticking out, along with the suffocating lime dust and other unknown danger in the darkness. They could not go up very fast.
Soon, they arrived on the fifth floor one after another.
